COLOURS USED IN
PAINTING
For an idea of the pigments
used by Jean Pucelle in his
manuscript illuminations, see:Renaissance
Colour Palette.

Jean Pucelle (c.1290-1334)

Jean (Jehan) Pucelle was one of the most
influential Gothic art style
book painters and best miniaturists
in Paris of the early 14th century. Few details exist of his career, except
that he built up a thriving and highly respected workshop whose artworks
commanded high prices and dominated the market for both illuminated
manuscripts, devotional religious art
and miniature painting.
A favourite of the French court, and the French nobility, his painting
differed its progressive style of realism from the traditional "flat"
icon painters of the time, and suggests that he had a good knowledge of
contemporary developments in the Florentine Proto-Renaissance
(c.1300 onwards), as well as the more conservative Siena School of painting,
and Netherlandish praxis. Thus his style of Christian
art may be seen as a bridge between the Gothic idiom and the new International
Gothic style.

Jean Pucelle is associated with three works
of book illustration, of which two were
collaborations: the Belleville Breviary and the Bible of Robert
de Billyng (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris); the third, the Hours
of Jeanne d'Evreux (1328, Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum) was
commissioned sometime between 1325 and 1328 by Charles IV for his wife
Jeanne d'Evreux (Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York). The output from Pucelle's studio, however, was far
greater than was formerly believed: it consisted mainly of books commissioned
by rich patrons: The Breviary of Blanche of France, The Book
of Hours of Jeanne of Savoy, The Psalter of Queen Bonne of Luxembourg,
The Book of Hours of Jeanne II of Navarre and The Book of Hours
of Yolande of Flanders.

It is interesting to note the similarity
of style between Pucelle's painting
and the translucent enamels decorating the base of the famous silver-gilt
Virgin known as the Vierge de Jeanne d'Evreux (1339, Louvre). The
Breviaire de Belleville and the Heures de Jeanne d'Evreux
are the most characteristic of Pucelle's works and show him to be one
of the foremost craftsmen of his day.

Painting Style

The most striking elements of Pucelle's
style of French painting
are the strength of his imagination and the freedom of his invention,
both in his miniatures and in the marginal decorations. He fills these
with grotesque figures full of exuberance and humour, which suggest an
acquaintance with the 13th-century manuscripts of northern France and
Flanders. Above all, he shows an awareness of the work of other Old
Masters including Master Honore and his school; his concern for detail,
the subtlety of his design, his careful study of anatomy and psychology
- all reveal a strong Parisian influence. Moreover, Pucelle's technique
surpassed that of his predecessors. In the Heures de Jeanne d'Evreux
he used a black outline, dark stippling and light-red lines shaded with
red chalk and vivid colours.

Italian Influence

His most important discovery, however,
was tinting in grisaille
enriched with colour, an innovation which, because of its greyish monochrome
effect, permitted him to achieve an overall decorative unity on the page
and to give a lively plasticity to his figures. The technique may have
owed something to contemporary stained
glass, or Pucelle may have known of the discoveries of Giotto
(1267-1337). Whatever the case, Italian influence is apparent in both
his iconography and his style: certain architectural details and structures,
for example, are repeated. Some scenes even appear to be taken from the
Maesta Altarpiece
(1311, Siena Cathedral) by Duccio di
Buoninsegna (1255-1319) and transposed into the French Gothic idiom.
These new methods of creating illusion in painting by the use of perspective
and chiaroscuro were
much admired by Pucelle. He made an attempt to place his figures, sometimes
rather clumsily and uncertainly, in three-dimensional settings resembling
doll's house interiors, and to exaggerate their foreshortening.

Such new techniques would have been impossible
without some knowledge of early Italian Renaissance
art, and Pucelle may at some point have visited Italy. But gradually
these Italian characteristics became less obvious. The manuscripts of
Pucelle and his school show that the master and his most gifted pupils
had assimilated even earlier stylistic elements to arrive at a rational,
analytical, elegant and decorative synthesis which is wholly Parisian
in its narrative ingenuity and naturalistic outlines, and which probed
deeply into human experience.

Illuminations by Jean Pucelle are rare
but can be seen in a few of the best art
museums in Europe and America.

For a guide to how European fine art recovered,
after the Dark Ages, under Charlemagne, Otto the Great, Louis the Pious
and Charles the Bald, see: Carolingian
Art (750-900); Ottonian
Art (900-1050); and Romanesque
Art (1000-1200).

 For more about 14th century miniature
painting in France, see: History of Art.
 For details of manuscript illumination, see: Homepage.